I noticed that Stephen Walt’s post questioning the risk of a nuclear or near-nuclear Iran setting off a regional nuclear arms race in the Middle East was long on nonproliferation theory and non-regional historical examples. But there wasn’t much discussion of the political dynamics specific to the Middle East that would certainly play a role in such a scenario. For that I recommend this U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report (.pdf) examining the factors driving Saudi, Egyptian and Turkish policy on this very question. Although it expresses no certainty, the report’s outlook is a bit less sanguine than Walt’s discussion. [...]
Among the consequences of a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program, we often hear about Iran’s fearsome response capacity, which at its most potent include its proxies (Hezbollah, Hamas and militia cells in Iraq and potentially Afghanistan); its long-range missiles (capable of reaching Israel); its asymmetric and irregular assets abroad (think terrorist attacks); and the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz to oil shipping. Sam Roggeveen was the first person I remember who directly challenged a number of these assumptions. Eugene Gholz recently expressed skepticism about the oil transport angle. Now Robert Farley builds on a post by Galrann [...]
At their Oct. 1 meeting in Geneva, representatives from Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany) appeared to make considerable progress. The Iranian government representative agreed to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its recently revealed second, secret uranium enrichment facility near the city of Qum. Iran also expressed interest “in principle” in sending its stockpiles of low enriched uranium to Russia and France for further enrichment and conversion into fuel rods for an experimental reactor used for medical purposes. Russia’s role in helping secure these developments remains unclear. Russian leaders [...]
